the emo ghost of glasgow airport
It is strange to be on a commercial flight again. I have not been on a flight since 2019, when I flew back from Japan after a year of working as an assistant language teacher. In the time between, the advent of COVID-19 meant that embarking on a passenger flight was asking for trouble. I remember lying on the lawn in my parents’ garden in the summer of 2020 and looking at the sky - a clear blue, sharper and more real because most flights had been downed. Looking back now, I see that it was the beginning of all of this.
It is spring and Russia has invaded the Ukraine. My housemate leaves for a weekend to glue herself to a motorway in the West Midlands as part of a campaign organised by Just Stop Oil. A picture of her, peeking out of the back of a line of campaigners, appears on BBC News. Experts forecast a recession for the summer, as well as skyrocketing temperatures.
In the airport, all outside circumstances disappear, worries pared down to missed connections, flight delays, and the astronomical price of a sandwich. I join a scattered pack of travellers. Our anxieties are not about world crises, but instead about making it to our boarding gates on time, and the stewardship of our passports. The airport is set apart. In the airport, you are preoccupied by a narrow set of possibilities that might ruin your travel plans. Your belt might set off the security scanner. Your fluids might be confiscated.
We are docile and cooperative, obedient to the signs directing us between EU and non-EU passports, boarding gates and duty free, baggage and customs. We observe the UK tradition of drinking before a flight, no matter what time it is: conventions about the “proper” time for a drink fall away. My flight is delayed and I sit in the departures lounge trying to conceal the fact that I am drawing the other travellers in my sketchbook.
There is a stag do on the aeroplane; the groom is wearing a tiny flamenco dress with an artificial rose clipped to the middle of his head. Putting his bag into the overhead lockers; he tells his friends to stop pinching his legs, it's disrespectful. Elsewhere on the plane are women on a hen weekend, all as pink and polished as an acrylic tip. The bride to be in a plastic veil, a knowing nod to what’s to come, and hair the colour of biscuits.
When the plane takes off it hits a patch of turbulence; I grip the armrest and say fuck under my breath, and it comes to me that I am crying a little bit because I am sure I am going to die alone, if not on this flight then another time.
The plane passes through the cloud bank. The woman next to me leans over and says: "It is okay now."
Her husband wants to know what we are talking about. "We are just the frightened sort," she replies. She offers me some of her lunch because there is a no catering available on this particular flight. I decline because I have just spent £200 on an egg baguette.
They had each moved their hands in the sign of the cross on takeoff, because nothing is guaranteed. The man has bald patch in the perfect shape of a circle on the back of his head. His skull seems to be flatter there, as if all he does is sleep on planes, and the area moulded to the headrest after years of pressure.
The plane passes over the east coast of Scotland, offering a view of a landscape that has been scraped back, reordered, and gardened into a mosaic of pine forests.
Coming back I am still anxious and tired from another bout of flight delays and canned air. I am sat next to a line of teenage girls who tear the crusts off the complimentary sandwiches and prop their phones up to watch videos of lifestyle influencers in Los Angeles having their wisdom teeth removed. When the flight attendant comes around with the refreshments trolley I am desperate to be heard over them: I want my tea in a tiny cup with a shortbread biscuit and the sugar and the powdered milk in an even smaller package. I want to be seen and I want to smile at the flight attendant and then drink my tea and go back to the flat and sleep, thank you.
On the ground, the arrivals hall reflects Scotland in a way that might be considered distasteful in a different context: large-scale photographs of pipers decorating the corridors, soft stuffed Nessie toys in the gift shops, and tiny bottles of whiskey in WHSmith. It reflects as much about Scotland as a nation as I can make sense of the State of Things right now. By the time I spot the Costa at the bus stop, I’m ready to kiss the ground in relief.
Things I’ve liked recently:
Love Hurts by The Everly Brothers;
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine. I remembered that I can take books out of the art school library that aren’t anything to do with my course and this was one of them. Hugely enjoyable;
I think the best thing about art are the moments where you come across someone who makes works that just… scratches that itch you have at the back of your brain. I picked up a book of drawings by Seattle based artist Gregory Blackstock in the library this week and this feeling came back around. Blackstock worked as a janitor and potwasher until retirement, and has produced a vast body of work that categorises all kinds of things;
Girl’s Night Out by Joanna Quinn. I looked at some hand drawn animation for my most uni project, this sharply observed short by one of the UK’s few female animators was a favourite;
Some of the best places in Glasgow can be found down side alleys. Recently, I bought paints at Draw! Art Store on Cresswell Lane (after chatting with the lovely owner, he threw in an extra paint for free!) and had drinks at The Old Hairdresser’s on Renfield Lane.
As always, thanks for reading!